Africa - Day 1 - New Beginnings

Day -1: Tokyo, Japan

The story pretty much begins where my Japan posts left off. My flight was in the morning and for my last meal in Japan, I had bought a 200g slab tuna toro (Toro = Belly, the Best part!) for about $12 AUD in a supermarket the night before and had it for breakfast. I left S, and caught the train to the airport with mixed feelings. It was sad to leave S, I knew I wouldn't be seeing her for at least 4 months, and although Japan had been an absolute sauna whilst I was there, I had a great time, with Shirakawago and My Fuji major highlights of this trip. On the other hand, I was off to see my cousins London who I hadn't seen in 6 years (since my last round the world trip) and then off to my African adventure.

The Narita Express is seamless and I arrive without incident at Narita airport. Check-in is a breeze and I am already missing my Gold Frequent Flyer status which would have given me access to the lounge. Life is tough. I board my BA flight to London and for the first time, my back hurts several hours into the 12 hour flight, it must be the BA seats or something. A few movies (I can't remember what I watched) and a nap later, I arrive in London in the afternoon.

Day 0: London

My cousin Thomas is there to pick me up, and I meet his girlfriend for the first time. We pick up Cynthia and Monica from their works and meet up with Aunty for dinner at an Italian place. The meal "feels" cheap, because we are paying in pounds and mains are like 10 pounds. The food is average to be honest, I order a steak for my main, which was forgettable.

I really like my family from my mother's side, every time I see them I feel really welcome, even though it has been many years between visits. At some point during my childhood they have all come to visit me, I guess when they were all my age and I remember really looking up to them, especially Thomas. They seemed so cool, travelling around the world, buying cool stuff and just generally living a lifestyle that I could only envy.

Its funny how things turn out because this time, they were the ones impressed and jealous of how much travel I had done over the years. I had been to South America, Europe, Japan, China, SE Asia, and now Africa. In some small way, I had been inspired to be like them, to be grown up and use my money to travel the world, and enjoy life and now they looked at me and the roles were reversed.. I'm sure that's just how tings work, one day i'll look at some kid and be really impressed by what they've achieved and probably be a bit disappointed that they have done more than I have.

Unfortunately, I'm not able to catch Bec or Logan, but will see them when I get there next year so not a big deal. By the time dinner is over, I'm wasted and have a great nights sleep, waking up about 9am - Notice how I don't get Jetlag? I think its to do with the fact that I can sleep anywhere, anytime, even if I've just woken up. I don't remember the last time I struggled to fall asleep under any circumstances...

I have an afternoon flight so Aunty makes me lunch and I take the tube to the Heathrow where my Turkish airlines flight to Kampala is slightly delayed. While I wander the airport, I end up buying "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" and a baskin robbins choc fudge ice cream from a vending machine, purely because it was at the gate and I've never had baskin robbins from a vending machine before..

Funny thing at the gate : some Turkish guys trying to bring 2 massive duffel bags each on as hang luggage. They are pulled aside and after some heated discussions, they begin putting on as many clothes from the bag as they can to the point where the guy is wearing a t shirt, a 2 jumpers, a vest a coat and a overcoat at the same time, but the airline rep still doesn't seem to be satisfied that the bags are light enough, I'm not quite sure what happens to them.

I arrive at Istanbul at some ungodly hour, like 3am and have a 1.5hr stopover before I get on the plane to Kampala. I get on without incident and arrive at Kampala Airport at about 7:30am.

Day 0: Kampala, Uganda

Kampala Airport is fairly basic. We get off the plane via stairs, and the arrivals area is basically a warehouse. At this hour the airport is fairly empty and I'd be lying if I told you I wasn't nervous. You generally don't hear good things about Africa do you? You heard of war, of poverty, of disease of foreign aid being sent over. I guess it wouldn't be unfair to say that I pretty much expected to get robbed at some point over the next 2 months. When I'm trying to fill out my arrivals form, the PWC pen that I have brought with me decides to run out of ink and of course, there are no pens in the whole arrivals room - Welcome to Africa. I have to borrow a pen of an African guy who is just standing around there, I'm not even sure he even works for the airport. When I borrow the pen, he asks if I need a taxi, because if I do he can call his friend - this is great, i've been in the continent 30 seconds and I'm already being hustled - This is Africa. I politely decline, pretending that I've been here before and that my friend will meet me, I'm still in paranoid mode and want to make it seem like I'm the experienced traveller, not the uncertain asian guy who has no idea what he's gotten himself into.

Clearing immigration is a breeze, you give them 50 USD and they let you in. I change some money at the office 2200 Ugandan Shillings = 1 USD and look for a cab. There are a few guys out the front and I have a vague idea of how much a cab to my hostel (Red Chilli's Hideway) should cost - It was about 30km away. Of course they don't have metered taxi's here so you negotiate price in advance. The first guy approaches with a price about 20% higher than what I'm told to pay so I counter with the correct amount which he accepts -it was probably still too high.

I walk over to his car, and it wasn't your typical first world cab. It was an old Toyota I think, and the first thing I notice is that the windscreen has a large crack through it. The second thing I notice is that it is quite dirty and third thing I notice is that it smells funny. We set off, and I try to act relaxed, when in reality I have no idea where I'm going. We drive out of the airport and the immediate surroundings are quite rural the roads are dirt, and there seems to be farms on the side of the road. There is constant overtaking as there are trucks and buses that are simply slow and we cross to the otherside of the road to do that. Having said that he wasn't a dangerous driver or anything. The first thing you notice is the lack of infrastructure.

Even as we got closer to the Kampala, which is the capital city of Uganda, the roads did not improve. The only difference was that instead of houses made out of mud bricks on the side of the road, you get houses made out of concrete. And traffic started getting bad. At one point when we were crossing through the city, we were in a legitimate traffic jam. Kampala was dirty, smelly and poor, which pretty much sums up most of the country. There is garbage on the side of the road in the form of plastic bottles, cans, wrapping, newspapers etc. I dont think there was a garbage collection system and I think people actually burn their garbage to get rid of it. I drove past a few markets where there were people selling raw meat (covered in flies), lots of bananas, clothing, and various other necessities.

Its hard to put into words my first impressions of Kampala, it just hit me that this place was literally a world apart from the cleanliness, Shinkansens and skyscrapers of Tokyo. How could two places in the same planet be so different? It wasn't even the dirtiness of London, this was the dirtiness of poverty, of a people that are so behind in terms of living conditions to what I know that it was hard to comprehend. Unlike rural China, it was unclear to me whether or not these people were actually progressing, the farmers didn't even use the old crappy tractors they had in China, they were still farming completely by hand, and the fields were covered in weeds and the banana were not planted in straight rows - even agricultural techniques here were behind.

About an hour and a half later we arrive at Red Chilli Hideaway, which is out of the city centre. The gate is locked with a security guard behind, the fact that they need security to guard the camp is ... interesting.

To be continued...